Description

Two days to build the skills and put them to work

Knowing how to apply a tourniquet is one thing. Recognizing that someone needs one, getting your equipment out, communicating with the people around you, and keeping track of everything else happening takes practice. This 2-day Medical & Trauma Response course gives you time to learn the skills, work through the decisions, and come back for another attempt with an instructor helping you improve.

Join firefighter and paramedic Tyler Bolten at The Survival University’s Mountain Camp for 2 full days of hands-on medical training. Day 1 includes the complete Basic Medical & Trauma Response course, including Stop The Bleed. Day 2 builds on that foundation with more involved patient care exercises, outdoor scenarios, and controlled challenges that help you practice responding under pressure.

This is one complete 2-day course. Everyone attends both days; there is no Stop The Bleed-only or single-day enrollment option within this class. No previous medical training is required. The course is designed for everyday people who want more practice helping someone at home, at work, on the road, or outdoors.

2027 course dates and location

Choose July 20–21 or September 3–4, 2027. Tuition is $399 per person for both days, including the Stop The Bleed portion.

Training takes place at Mountain Camp, 71 Monarch Drive, Cripple Creek, CO 80813. Day 1 check-in begins at 9 a.m. Mountain Time, with instruction starting at 10 a.m. Plan to attend 2 full days. The instructor will confirm the second day’s meeting time with the group. Activities, breaks, and finish times remain flexible so students have time to work through the material. Read our Mountain Camp driving directions before traveling.

Day 1: Stop The Bleed and the foundations of medical response

The first day includes everything taught in our full-day Basic Medical & Trauma Response course. You begin with Stop The Bleed, then expand into assessing an injured person, recognizing immediate concerns, providing basic support, and working with others until professional help arrives. Demonstrations are followed by coached practice, with time to ask questions and repeat unfamiliar techniques.

Stop The Bleed focuses on recognizing life-threatening bleeding and practicing direct pressure, wound packing, and tourniquet use with training equipment. You will work on the individual skills and apply them in short exercises. Students who successfully complete the required instruction and hands-on skills receive a Stop The Bleed course completion certificate through the instructor.

• Recognizing life-threatening bleeding and requesting help.
• Direct pressure and pressure dressings.
• Wound packing with training materials.
• Tourniquet application and checking your work.
• Partner communication and repeated coached practice.

Recognizing the situation and organizing your response

Before you approach an injured person, you need to understand what is happening around them. Traffic, fire, electricity, unstable ground, and bodily fluids can all affect how you respond. The class covers assessing the scene, requesting help, and communicating useful information so that your efforts support the response already underway.

Tyler introduces MARCH as a framework for organizing trauma priorities. It gives students a way to think through severe bleeding, airway and breathing concerns, circulation, and head injury or temperature-related problems. You will discuss what you are seeing, what needs attention, and how to keep assessing the person as the situation changes.

• Scene assessment and recognizing hazards.
• Personal protection and exposure to bodily fluids.
• Calling emergency services and communicating location and patient information.
• Consent and the general purpose and limits of Good Samaritan protections.
• Using MARCH to organize an initial trauma assessment.
• Recognizing changes in responsiveness, breathing, and circulation.

Basic emergency care and supporting an injured person

Once you recognize a problem, the next question is what you can do with the training and supplies available. The full-day class introduces basic airway positioning, CPR concepts, recognition of shock, and care for heat or cold exposure. Head, neck, and spine concerns are discussed alongside the decisions involved in protecting someone and avoiding unnecessary movement.

Wound care and splinting give students additional ways to help while waiting for professional care. Tyler uses the PAWS framework to introduce pain, antibiotics, wound care, and splinting, with practical work focused on comfort, protecting wounds, and supporting injured limbs. Medication discussions provide context for further medical care; this introductory course does not teach students to prescribe or administer antibiotics.

• Basic airway positioning and recognizing breathing problems.
• Introduction to adult and infant CPR concepts.
• Recognizing shock and monitoring an injured person.
• Reducing heat loss and recognizing heat-related illness.
• Head, neck, and spine considerations.
• Basic wound care, dressings, and splinting.
• Communicating observations and care provided to arriving responders.

Any demonstration of airway adjuncts or assisted ventilation uses training equipment and introduces the role of those tools. The course provides introductory medical education, rather than a qualification to perform advanced medical procedures.

Drags, carries, and patient movement

An injured person may need to be moved away from an immediate hazard, or they may be better served by staying where they are until additional help arrives. Students explore that decision and practice communicating and coordinating a move. The emphasis is on understanding the situation, the patient’s needs, the available help, and the physical demands of the technique.

Tyler introduces selected drags and carries from his outline, along with webbing-assisted movement and improvised carrying systems. Practice is supervised and adapted to participants’ abilities, allowing students to work on technique and teamwork without being expected to lift beyond their capacity.

• Distinguishing urgent movement from a planned patient move.
• Selected one-person and assisted drags and carries.
• Webbing-assisted carries and improvised stretcher concepts.
• Coordinating movement and communicating with a team.
• Recognizing when to leave a patient in place or request more help.

Day 2: More involved care and realistic scenarios

The second day gives you room to build on what you learned instead of finishing just as the pieces begin to connect. You revisit assessment and treatment skills, work through more complicated situations, and practice caring for someone while conditions and priorities change. The emphasis is on making better decisions with the skills you have, noticing what you missed, and keeping the response organized.

A scenario may begin with a hiking accident, a traffic incident, or a simulated bleeding injury. You will need to assess the scene, call for help, identify the most urgent problem, and communicate with your team. As the exercise develops, you may need to reassess the patient, protect them from the environment, support an injured limb, or plan a coordinated move. These exercises connect the individual skills from day 1 into a complete response.

• More detailed patient assessment and repeated reassessment.
• Combining bleeding control with airway, breathing, circulation, and temperature considerations.
• Additional wound care, dressings, splinting, and patient support practice.
• Planning patient movement and coordinating drags, carries, or improvised carrying systems.
• Communicating patient changes, care provided, and location information.
• Sharing tasks, managing equipment, and handing over care to arriving responders.

Practicing under pressure

Tyler’s plan for day 2 includes stress inoculation: introducing manageable pressure in a supervised training setting so you can practice thinking and communicating when a situation feels less orderly. Exercises become more demanding as the group is ready. The challenge comes from putting skills together, making decisions, and working with other people while an instructor observes and coaches.

Each exercise is followed by a discussion of what happened. What did you notice first? What needed attention? Did everyone understand their job? Was the patient reassessed after care was provided? You will have time to examine those decisions, receive specific feedback, and apply it in another exercise. The goal is useful repetition and stronger judgment, not simply making a scenario harder.

Scenarios draw from Tyler’s outline, including hiking accidents, traffic accidents, and simulated gunshot injuries. All injuries are simulated, and there is no live-fire component. Exercises and patient movement are adapted to participants’ abilities and the conditions at camp.

Everyday emergencies and outdoor settings

The same foundational skills can matter in a parking lot, on a job site, or several miles down a trail. Training at Mountain Camp adds uneven ground, changing weather, and the practical challenge of managing people and equipment outdoors. Students work on recognizing how the setting affects their response while keeping attention on the person who needs help.

This course offers a deeper opportunity to practice basic medical and trauma response. It does not provide an advanced medical credential or replace Wilderness First Aid, Wilderness First Responder, or professional medical training. CPR concepts and demonstrations may be included, but a separate CPR certification is not included.

Your instructor

Tyler Bolten is a career firefighter and nationally registered paramedic whose background includes thousands of 911 responses, tactical emergency medicine, hazardous materials response, and technical rescue. He is an instructor in Stop The Bleed, CPR, and Advanced Wilderness Life Support, and served in the U.S. Coast Guard and Army Reserve. His experience helps connect the course material with the situations students could encounter outside the classroom. Read Tyler’s instructor profile.

Come ready to participate

Bring food and water for the training day, outdoor clothing you can move in, sturdy footwear, weather protection, and a notebook. Expect to kneel, work on the ground, handle training equipment, and cooperate with other students. Contact us ahead of time about participation needs or overnight arrangements. See the Class Details tab for directions, facilities, and a full packing list.